As I sit here at McDonalds, drinking 75 cent coffee while checking mail on my iPad (conveniently nesting in the steering wheel) using McD's free wifi, I'm reminded of one of my first thoughts about the iPad. "You think this is neat? Just wait for the "Pro" version."
An updated "Air" could be it: a ubiquitous mini-laptop that runs real software applications when needed but can instantly morph into a go-anywhere entertainment and social networking tool... all in an iPad (or MacBook Air) lookalike product... for an appropriate price.
The hard things have been done already: Thin, light, long battery life, bright display (LCD now but changing to OLED could improve both image quality and battery life) fast, optical disk sharing, optional external conventional keyboard and mouse or stylus, and high volume production.
Emphasis on the operating system makes sense. The next big thing will have to start out with a dual-mode user interface with both traditional keyboard/mouse and touch capabilities.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Home Movies & Slide Shows
My big project - converting home movies from film and tape to computer files - has introduced an unexpected problem: now it is too easy to find and view these relics from our past. Instead of feeling anticipation and awe, common reactions from the audience seem to be "I don't want people to see me like that," or "it makes me too sad" to see departed people and pets.
I've always taken pictures by some kind of instinct to capture an event or a person or a scene that I like. The choice of subjects has always reflected my mood at the time. Sometimes I feel a duty to be a recorder, sometimes I am caught up in color and composition, sometimes I just record something that makes me feel good, or something that strikes me as being special or significant. And, thanks to my evolving interest in family history, I may consider the possible value of an image to some future family researcher.
I also have always subscribed to the notion that the photographer is an artist who makes the decisions about what and how to take pictures, and also "owns" the resulting images. Thus I can - if I wish - produce shows for family consumption that show things as I choose to show them. Also I can - if I wish - obtain permission from individuals in these pictures for display outside of the family.
(Note that none of these comments relate to commercial usage of images.)
Electronic imaging and the internet have changed the game. Individuals who are photographic subjects now have concerns about unintended wide distribution of their images to unknown audiences. There is a new line to be drawn between legitimate privacy concerns and paranoia about the unknown dangers posed by Facebook, YouTube and a myriad of other social-networking internet services.
It seems as if both the photographer and photographee need to update their expectations.
On one hand, the photographer must respect a subject's trust by appropriate management of images. This means that images that were taken in anticipation of sharing only with a limited (family) audience should not be released to networks without appropriate provisions for privacy & security.
The subject must trust the photographer and respect his/her decisions. In general I, as the photographer, reserve the rights to my images including the decision whether to retain or destroy them.
I've always taken pictures by some kind of instinct to capture an event or a person or a scene that I like. The choice of subjects has always reflected my mood at the time. Sometimes I feel a duty to be a recorder, sometimes I am caught up in color and composition, sometimes I just record something that makes me feel good, or something that strikes me as being special or significant. And, thanks to my evolving interest in family history, I may consider the possible value of an image to some future family researcher.
I also have always subscribed to the notion that the photographer is an artist who makes the decisions about what and how to take pictures, and also "owns" the resulting images. Thus I can - if I wish - produce shows for family consumption that show things as I choose to show them. Also I can - if I wish - obtain permission from individuals in these pictures for display outside of the family.
(Note that none of these comments relate to commercial usage of images.)
Electronic imaging and the internet have changed the game. Individuals who are photographic subjects now have concerns about unintended wide distribution of their images to unknown audiences. There is a new line to be drawn between legitimate privacy concerns and paranoia about the unknown dangers posed by Facebook, YouTube and a myriad of other social-networking internet services.
It seems as if both the photographer and photographee need to update their expectations.
On one hand, the photographer must respect a subject's trust by appropriate management of images. This means that images that were taken in anticipation of sharing only with a limited (family) audience should not be released to networks without appropriate provisions for privacy & security.
The subject must trust the photographer and respect his/her decisions. In general I, as the photographer, reserve the rights to my images including the decision whether to retain or destroy them.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Welcome, iPad, but Mac, don’t go away just yet…
Welcome, iPad, but Mac, don’t go away just yet…
The Mac has influenced my life for more than 25 years. I’m a “Mac person,” how would a first generation iPad fit in?
Ordering an iPad was a gut decision. The only logical aspect was deciding to forego 3G, since most of my computer use outside the home is in places that provide wifi internet access, and I can tether my laptop to my phone to reach the internet in emergencies. And 32GB seemed more than adequate considering that I don’t expect to need much room for video or music.
Now I’ve spent my first month of life with the iPad. What’s it been used for? Has it enhanced my life enough to justify the cost? Has it replaced my trusty MacBook?
I think I’ve given it a pretty good workout.
Over the past thirty days I’ve written a couple of short articles and lots of email, surfed the web and emailed links to family and friends, live-chatted with Apple tech support, ordered parts for my lawnmower, watched some movie trailers and TED Talks, opened a Netflix account, read my daily Apple news fix at macintouch.com, followed the daily news on a variety of websites, read parts of a book from my Kindle account, downloaded and read electronic editions of US News, loaded music and blogs via iTunes, checked in on FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn, downloaded and installed a couple dozen apps, transferred files via Drop Box and iDisk, printed a few documents while on my home network, looked at pictures in MobileMe Gallery and Picasa, made wifi connections at restaurants, coffee shops, airports, bars, an auto repair shop and the press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center. And on occasion, I’ve used MobileMe’s “Find My iPhone” to see if Linda (my wife) was in the area.
Right now the iPad is resting, sitting happily behind me, pretending to be a radio, playing jazz from New Orleans via WWOZ, as it was when I came in from the car. (It sounds pretty good and is loud enough… I know it could be better if I just plugged in some speakers, and I knew that I could be listening on my desktop Mac, but that’s not the point of this story.)
It’s too easy to compare the iPad to a Mac, and there to find problems. But the iPad brings something quite different. It is “available” when its big brother computers aren’t. It doesn’t add weight or complexity to travel. It can live with papers in a briefcase or in the glove compartment. It sits comfortably on my lap or on the steering wheel or on the seat-back tray in an airplane. The concept of using the “best available screen” is making more sense every day.
I only had a few days of iPad experience before heading off to Las Vegas for an annual convention, and once I arrived I needed to do some troubleshooting. That was when I discovered that access to the iPad Guide was only a link - not a durable copy stored in the iPad, and therefore not much help for troubleshooting connection problems. A very helpful Apple support person tried to email the PDF to me - I'd know later if it worked (it didn’t). Eventually I discovered “GoodReader,” an app/document reader for PDFs, which can retrieve downloaded documents from email or the web and hold them for later viewing without an internet connection.
The built-in note pad turned out to be useful for taking quick notes, although I quickly discovered the pitfalls of typing on the on-screen keyboard. The Pages app, while more powerful, didn’t seem to flow easily for my ad-hoc writing. Eventually I emailed my notes to my desktop Mac where I could use familiar editing tools.
Here are some other early impressions:
The UI and Managing Files
Managing files is pretty simple as long as you think "sync" (via iTunes) instead of copy, move, download, etc. Mail and the Safari browser provide a button to send links via email. Otherwise, some file transfer actions are possible using tools like Air Sharing and Drop Box, and iDisk/MobileMe and iWork. It looks like this will be a very active area for new apps and peripheral products, like the newly announced Air Stash, a wifi connected SD card reader.
Safari has become the new Finder. Most files now live in the cloud, hiding behind aliases/short cuts disguised as web pages. No more working one’s way up and down and sideways through nested folders.
The iPad isn’t a Mac… at least not until the MacOS morphs into a touch-driven user interface. Say goodbye to the desktop metaphor. Click and drag has become tap and hope. And it’s amazing how easy the transition has been.
The Keyboard
The on-screen keyboard requires a light and accurate touch which should favor my "hunt & peck" style, but I’m not as accurate (yet) as I hope to become. Typing errors don’t just mean unwanted characters but also can invoke unwanted commands or double keystrokes. Someone who has lived with the iPhone will probably find these to be familiar yet manageable issues.
Making text corrections is awkward. There are no arrow keys. The main keyboard also lacks numbers, most punctuation marks and “Undo.” (These items are reachable by first tapping the “123” key to bring up a new keyboard).
Cut-copy-paste use the same interesting (strange?) tool that first came to the iPhone. It has a mind of it's own. After a few weeks it still defies most of my efforts to use it.
The spelling corrector also has a mind of its own, illustrated by fighting with me that "Macintouch" should really be "Macintosh" and making other unilateral decisions that require effort to correct.
Printing
Printing was a mystery at first since there weren’t any print commands. Checking the App Store led me to DocPrinter for sending text or spreadsheet files over my local network for printing via a (free) client running on a desktop Mac. It works well and seems less convoluted than syncing via iTunes to access a Mac application for printing. Some day I’d like a more general capability for printing to a network-connected printer.
Wifi Network Access
Wifi connections to local networks have generally worked automatically without problems, and performance seems roughly equivalent to my white MacBook.
The ‘Vegas Convention Center provided the biggest wifi challenge, and also showed me the importance of carrying copies of critical documents, such as the iPad Guide, rather than depending upon a potentially-unusable link.
Service in the pressroom was no problem, with UID & password provided and a very strong signal, but out on the show floor things got ugly. I counted over thirty networks in a single spot in one exhibit hall. Renewing the DHCP lease or “forgetting” a wifi network - both options in the settings menu - didn’t help. I wasn’t alone. Lacking data to the contrary, I expect that the iPad was no worse than many other types of hardware, as many people - including exhibitors - were complaining about WiFi access.
When the wifi connection drops it’s not clear what action to take. … go to the settings app and take control? Or just be patient? A status indicator to indicate what the Pad is doing would be helpful.
The Case
I like the Apple case more and more, despite negatives raised by some early reviewers. It is durable, easy to hold and should help protect against spills. The flap makes an effective side sun shield, as I discovered on my mid-afternoon flight from Las Vegas. Back home, I found that the case supports the iPad in “steering wheel mode” (while parked, of course) and provides a very comfortable hands-free viewing position while using McDonald's wifi, drinking coffee, etc.
Pictures
The iPad provides tools for viewing images from local or online libraries, and for loading image files from a usb-connected card reader or camera. Images that appear on screen can be saved to the built-in “Photos” app by a press & hold action. I think that its greatest role - apart from running slide shows - may be an easy partnership with a digital camera, making it possible to examine and compare images right away, while there still is an opportunity for more shots. I haven’t yet tried to test this notion.
Summary
I’m convinced that the most impressive feature of the iPad so far has been its unobtrusiveness - light, thin, rugged, versatile - which meant that it could almost always be nearby and available.
The touch interface worked especially well for me for email and web browsing. Time will tell whether I can develop adequate typing skills for the on-screen keyboard. I hope so, because accessories such as an auxiliary keyboard can diminish the iPad’s go-anywhere versatility.
Some jobs are over its head. When the time came to prepare this article, I threw in the towel. I emailed all the rough material from the iPad to myself, so that I could consolidate and edit on a bigger screen with more powerful tools. Sadly I am reminded again how much I depend upon MORE (a 20-year old application - now in the public domain - that requires Classic mode or an old PPC Mac for work like this... What a marvelous iPad app that could be!)
The iPad gives me a third option for portable computing. My smartphone (Treo 700p) will go everywhere. The iPad will go whenever I have room. My laptop will go wherever I need its power for software capabilities that don't exist for the iPad, or when I need added connectivity by tethering the Treo.
Saving the best for last, my big win came at the auto repair shop, where I found an online discount coupon that was worth $50 when I showed the iPad to the cashier for validation. How neat is that?
© Joe Hallett 2010
Welcome, iPad, but Mac, don’t go away just yet…
The Mac has influenced my life for more than 25 years. I’m a “Mac person,” how would a first generation iPad fit in?
Ordering an iPad was a gut decision. The only logical aspect was deciding to forego 3G, since most of my computer use outside the home is in places that provide wifi internet access, and I can tether my laptop to my phone to reach the internet in emergencies. And 32GB seemed more than adequate considering that I don’t expect to need much room for video or music.
Now I’ve spent my first month of life with the iPad. What’s it been used for? Has it enhanced my life enough to justify the cost? Has it replaced my trusty MacBook?
I think I’ve given it a pretty good workout.
Over the past thirty days I’ve written a couple of short articles and lots of email, surfed the web and emailed links to family and friends, live-chatted with Apple tech support, ordered parts for my lawnmower, watched some movie trailers and TED Talks, opened a Netflix account, read my daily Apple news fix at macintouch.com, followed the daily news on a variety of websites, read parts of a book from my Kindle account, downloaded and read electronic editions of US News, loaded music and blogs via iTunes, checked in on FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn, downloaded and installed a couple dozen apps, transferred files via Drop Box and iDisk, printed a few documents while on my home network, looked at pictures in MobileMe Gallery and Picasa, made wifi connections at restaurants, coffee shops, airports, bars, an auto repair shop and the press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center. And on occasion, I’ve used MobileMe’s “Find My iPhone” to see if Linda (my wife) was in the area.
Right now the iPad is resting, sitting happily behind me, pretending to be a radio, playing jazz from New Orleans via WWOZ, as it was when I came in from the car. (It sounds pretty good and is loud enough… I know it could be better if I just plugged in some speakers, and I knew that I could be listening on my desktop Mac, but that’s not the point of this story.)
It’s too easy to compare the iPad to a Mac, and there to find problems. But the iPad brings something quite different. It is “available” when its big brother computers aren’t. It doesn’t add weight or complexity to travel. It can live with papers in a briefcase or in the glove compartment. It sits comfortably on my lap or on the steering wheel or on the seat-back tray in an airplane. The concept of using the “best available screen” is making more sense every day.
I only had a few days of iPad experience before heading off to Las Vegas for an annual convention, and once I arrived I needed to do some troubleshooting. That was when I discovered that access to the iPad Guide was only a link - not a durable copy stored in the iPad, and therefore not much help for troubleshooting connection problems. A very helpful Apple support person tried to email the PDF to me - I'd know later if it worked (it didn’t). Eventually I discovered “GoodReader,” an app/document reader for PDFs, which can retrieve downloaded documents from email or the web and hold them for later viewing without an internet connection.
The built-in note pad turned out to be useful for taking quick notes, although I quickly discovered the pitfalls of typing on the on-screen keyboard. The Pages app, while more powerful, didn’t seem to flow easily for my ad-hoc writing. Eventually I emailed my notes to my desktop Mac where I could use familiar editing tools.
Here are some other early impressions:
The UI and Managing Files
Managing files is pretty simple as long as you think "sync" (via iTunes) instead of copy, move, download, etc. Mail and the Safari browser provide a button to send links via email. Otherwise, some file transfer actions are possible using tools like Air Sharing and Drop Box, and iDisk/MobileMe and iWork. It looks like this will be a very active area for new apps and peripheral products, like the newly announced Air Stash, a wifi connected SD card reader.
Safari has become the new Finder. Most files now live in the cloud, hiding behind aliases/short cuts disguised as web pages. No more working one’s way up and down and sideways through nested folders.
The iPad isn’t a Mac… at least not until the MacOS morphs into a touch-driven user interface. Say goodbye to the desktop metaphor. Click and drag has become tap and hope. And it’s amazing how easy the transition has been.
The Keyboard
The on-screen keyboard requires a light and accurate touch which should favor my "hunt & peck" style, but I’m not as accurate (yet) as I hope to become. Typing errors don’t just mean unwanted characters but also can invoke unwanted commands or double keystrokes. Someone who has lived with the iPhone will probably find these to be familiar yet manageable issues.
Making text corrections is awkward. There are no arrow keys. The main keyboard also lacks numbers, most punctuation marks and “Undo.” (These items are reachable by first tapping the “123” key to bring up a new keyboard).
Cut-copy-paste use the same interesting (strange?) tool that first came to the iPhone. It has a mind of it's own. After a few weeks it still defies most of my efforts to use it.
The spelling corrector also has a mind of its own, illustrated by fighting with me that "Macintouch" should really be "Macintosh" and making other unilateral decisions that require effort to correct.
Printing
Printing was a mystery at first since there weren’t any print commands. Checking the App Store led me to DocPrinter for sending text or spreadsheet files over my local network for printing via a (free) client running on a desktop Mac. It works well and seems less convoluted than syncing via iTunes to access a Mac application for printing. Some day I’d like a more general capability for printing to a network-connected printer.
Wifi Network Access
Wifi connections to local networks have generally worked automatically without problems, and performance seems roughly equivalent to my white MacBook.
The ‘Vegas Convention Center provided the biggest wifi challenge, and also showed me the importance of carrying copies of critical documents, such as the iPad Guide, rather than depending upon a potentially-unusable link.
Service in the pressroom was no problem, with UID & password provided and a very strong signal, but out on the show floor things got ugly. I counted over thirty networks in a single spot in one exhibit hall. Renewing the DHCP lease or “forgetting” a wifi network - both options in the settings menu - didn’t help. I wasn’t alone. Lacking data to the contrary, I expect that the iPad was no worse than many other types of hardware, as many people - including exhibitors - were complaining about WiFi access.
When the wifi connection drops it’s not clear what action to take. … go to the settings app and take control? Or just be patient? A status indicator to indicate what the Pad is doing would be helpful.
The Case
I like the Apple case more and more, despite negatives raised by some early reviewers. It is durable, easy to hold and should help protect against spills. The flap makes an effective side sun shield, as I discovered on my mid-afternoon flight from Las Vegas. Back home, I found that the case supports the iPad in “steering wheel mode” (while parked, of course) and provides a very comfortable hands-free viewing position while using McDonald's wifi, drinking coffee, etc.
Pictures
The iPad provides tools for viewing images from local or online libraries, and for loading image files from a usb-connected card reader or camera. Images that appear on screen can be saved to the built-in “Photos” app by a press & hold action. I think that its greatest role - apart from running slide shows - may be an easy partnership with a digital camera, making it possible to examine and compare images right away, while there still is an opportunity for more shots. I haven’t yet tried to test this notion.
Summary
I’m convinced that the most impressive feature of the iPad so far has been its unobtrusiveness - light, thin, rugged, versatile - which meant that it could almost always be nearby and available.
The touch interface worked especially well for me for email and web browsing. Time will tell whether I can develop adequate typing skills for the on-screen keyboard. I hope so, because accessories such as an auxiliary keyboard can diminish the iPad’s go-anywhere versatility.
Some jobs are over its head. When the time came to prepare this article, I threw in the towel. I emailed all the rough material from the iPad to myself, so that I could consolidate and edit on a bigger screen with more powerful tools. Sadly I am reminded again how much I depend upon MORE (a 20-year old application - now in the public domain - that requires Classic mode or an old PPC Mac for work like this... What a marvelous iPad app that could be!)
The iPad gives me a third option for portable computing. My smartphone (Treo 700p) will go everywhere. The iPad will go whenever I have room. My laptop will go wherever I need its power for software capabilities that don't exist for the iPad, or when I need added connectivity by tethering the Treo.
Saving the best for last, my big win came at the auto repair shop, where I found an online discount coupon that was worth $50 when I showed the iPad to the cashier for validation. How neat is that?
© Joe Hallett 2010
The Mac has influenced my life for more than 25 years. I’m a “Mac person,” how would a first generation iPad fit in?
Ordering an iPad was a gut decision. The only logical aspect was deciding to forego 3G, since most of my computer use outside the home is in places that provide wifi internet access, and I can tether my laptop to my phone to reach the internet in emergencies. And 32GB seemed more than adequate considering that I don’t expect to need much room for video or music.
Now I’ve spent my first month of life with the iPad. What’s it been used for? Has it enhanced my life enough to justify the cost? Has it replaced my trusty MacBook?
I think I’ve given it a pretty good workout.
Over the past thirty days I’ve written a couple of short articles and lots of email, surfed the web and emailed links to family and friends, live-chatted with Apple tech support, ordered parts for my lawnmower, watched some movie trailers and TED Talks, opened a Netflix account, read my daily Apple news fix at macintouch.com, followed the daily news on a variety of websites, read parts of a book from my Kindle account, downloaded and read electronic editions of US News, loaded music and blogs via iTunes, checked in on FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn, downloaded and installed a couple dozen apps, transferred files via Drop Box and iDisk, printed a few documents while on my home network, looked at pictures in MobileMe Gallery and Picasa, made wifi connections at restaurants, coffee shops, airports, bars, an auto repair shop and the press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center. And on occasion, I’ve used MobileMe’s “Find My iPhone” to see if Linda (my wife) was in the area.
Right now the iPad is resting, sitting happily behind me, pretending to be a radio, playing jazz from New Orleans via WWOZ, as it was when I came in from the car. (It sounds pretty good and is loud enough… I know it could be better if I just plugged in some speakers, and I knew that I could be listening on my desktop Mac, but that’s not the point of this story.)
It’s too easy to compare the iPad to a Mac, and there to find problems. But the iPad brings something quite different. It is “available” when its big brother computers aren’t. It doesn’t add weight or complexity to travel. It can live with papers in a briefcase or in the glove compartment. It sits comfortably on my lap or on the steering wheel or on the seat-back tray in an airplane. The concept of using the “best available screen” is making more sense every day.
I only had a few days of iPad experience before heading off to Las Vegas for an annual convention, and once I arrived I needed to do some troubleshooting. That was when I discovered that access to the iPad Guide was only a link - not a durable copy stored in the iPad, and therefore not much help for troubleshooting connection problems. A very helpful Apple support person tried to email the PDF to me - I'd know later if it worked (it didn’t). Eventually I discovered “GoodReader,” an app/document reader for PDFs, which can retrieve downloaded documents from email or the web and hold them for later viewing without an internet connection.
The built-in note pad turned out to be useful for taking quick notes, although I quickly discovered the pitfalls of typing on the on-screen keyboard. The Pages app, while more powerful, didn’t seem to flow easily for my ad-hoc writing. Eventually I emailed my notes to my desktop Mac where I could use familiar editing tools.
Here are some other early impressions:
The UI and Managing Files
Managing files is pretty simple as long as you think "sync" (via iTunes) instead of copy, move, download, etc. Mail and the Safari browser provide a button to send links via email. Otherwise, some file transfer actions are possible using tools like Air Sharing and Drop Box, and iDisk/MobileMe and iWork. It looks like this will be a very active area for new apps and peripheral products, like the newly announced Air Stash, a wifi connected SD card reader.
Safari has become the new Finder. Most files now live in the cloud, hiding behind aliases/short cuts disguised as web pages. No more working one’s way up and down and sideways through nested folders.
The iPad isn’t a Mac… at least not until the MacOS morphs into a touch-driven user interface. Say goodbye to the desktop metaphor. Click and drag has become tap and hope. And it’s amazing how easy the transition has been.
The Keyboard
The on-screen keyboard requires a light and accurate touch which should favor my "hunt & peck" style, but I’m not as accurate (yet) as I hope to become. Typing errors don’t just mean unwanted characters but also can invoke unwanted commands or double keystrokes. Someone who has lived with the iPhone will probably find these to be familiar yet manageable issues.
Making text corrections is awkward. There are no arrow keys. The main keyboard also lacks numbers, most punctuation marks and “Undo.” (These items are reachable by first tapping the “123” key to bring up a new keyboard).
Cut-copy-paste use the same interesting (strange?) tool that first came to the iPhone. It has a mind of it's own. After a few weeks it still defies most of my efforts to use it.
The spelling corrector also has a mind of its own, illustrated by fighting with me that "Macintouch" should really be "Macintosh" and making other unilateral decisions that require effort to correct.
Printing
Printing was a mystery at first since there weren’t any print commands. Checking the App Store led me to DocPrinter for sending text or spreadsheet files over my local network for printing via a (free) client running on a desktop Mac. It works well and seems less convoluted than syncing via iTunes to access a Mac application for printing. Some day I’d like a more general capability for printing to a network-connected printer.
Wifi Network Access
Wifi connections to local networks have generally worked automatically without problems, and performance seems roughly equivalent to my white MacBook.
The ‘Vegas Convention Center provided the biggest wifi challenge, and also showed me the importance of carrying copies of critical documents, such as the iPad Guide, rather than depending upon a potentially-unusable link.
Service in the pressroom was no problem, with UID & password provided and a very strong signal, but out on the show floor things got ugly. I counted over thirty networks in a single spot in one exhibit hall. Renewing the DHCP lease or “forgetting” a wifi network - both options in the settings menu - didn’t help. I wasn’t alone. Lacking data to the contrary, I expect that the iPad was no worse than many other types of hardware, as many people - including exhibitors - were complaining about WiFi access.
When the wifi connection drops it’s not clear what action to take. … go to the settings app and take control? Or just be patient? A status indicator to indicate what the Pad is doing would be helpful.
The Case
I like the Apple case more and more, despite negatives raised by some early reviewers. It is durable, easy to hold and should help protect against spills. The flap makes an effective side sun shield, as I discovered on my mid-afternoon flight from Las Vegas. Back home, I found that the case supports the iPad in “steering wheel mode” (while parked, of course) and provides a very comfortable hands-free viewing position while using McDonald's wifi, drinking coffee, etc.
Pictures
The iPad provides tools for viewing images from local or online libraries, and for loading image files from a usb-connected card reader or camera. Images that appear on screen can be saved to the built-in “Photos” app by a press & hold action. I think that its greatest role - apart from running slide shows - may be an easy partnership with a digital camera, making it possible to examine and compare images right away, while there still is an opportunity for more shots. I haven’t yet tried to test this notion.
Summary
I’m convinced that the most impressive feature of the iPad so far has been its unobtrusiveness - light, thin, rugged, versatile - which meant that it could almost always be nearby and available.
The touch interface worked especially well for me for email and web browsing. Time will tell whether I can develop adequate typing skills for the on-screen keyboard. I hope so, because accessories such as an auxiliary keyboard can diminish the iPad’s go-anywhere versatility.
Some jobs are over its head. When the time came to prepare this article, I threw in the towel. I emailed all the rough material from the iPad to myself, so that I could consolidate and edit on a bigger screen with more powerful tools. Sadly I am reminded again how much I depend upon MORE (a 20-year old application - now in the public domain - that requires Classic mode or an old PPC Mac for work like this... What a marvelous iPad app that could be!)
The iPad gives me a third option for portable computing. My smartphone (Treo 700p) will go everywhere. The iPad will go whenever I have room. My laptop will go wherever I need its power for software capabilities that don't exist for the iPad, or when I need added connectivity by tethering the Treo.
Saving the best for last, my big win came at the auto repair shop, where I found an online discount coupon that was worth $50 when I showed the iPad to the cashier for validation. How neat is that?
© Joe Hallett 2010
Welcome, iPad, but Mac, don’t go away just yet…
The Mac has influenced my life for more than 25 years. I’m a “Mac person,” how would a first generation iPad fit in?
Ordering an iPad was a gut decision. The only logical aspect was deciding to forego 3G, since most of my computer use outside the home is in places that provide wifi internet access, and I can tether my laptop to my phone to reach the internet in emergencies. And 32GB seemed more than adequate considering that I don’t expect to need much room for video or music.
Now I’ve spent my first month of life with the iPad. What’s it been used for? Has it enhanced my life enough to justify the cost? Has it replaced my trusty MacBook?
I think I’ve given it a pretty good workout.
Over the past thirty days I’ve written a couple of short articles and lots of email, surfed the web and emailed links to family and friends, live-chatted with Apple tech support, ordered parts for my lawnmower, watched some movie trailers and TED Talks, opened a Netflix account, read my daily Apple news fix at macintouch.com, followed the daily news on a variety of websites, read parts of a book from my Kindle account, downloaded and read electronic editions of US News, loaded music and blogs via iTunes, checked in on FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn, downloaded and installed a couple dozen apps, transferred files via Drop Box and iDisk, printed a few documents while on my home network, looked at pictures in MobileMe Gallery and Picasa, made wifi connections at restaurants, coffee shops, airports, bars, an auto repair shop and the press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center. And on occasion, I’ve used MobileMe’s “Find My iPhone” to see if Linda (my wife) was in the area.
Right now the iPad is resting, sitting happily behind me, pretending to be a radio, playing jazz from New Orleans via WWOZ, as it was when I came in from the car. (It sounds pretty good and is loud enough… I know it could be better if I just plugged in some speakers, and I knew that I could be listening on my desktop Mac, but that’s not the point of this story.)
It’s too easy to compare the iPad to a Mac, and there to find problems. But the iPad brings something quite different. It is “available” when its big brother computers aren’t. It doesn’t add weight or complexity to travel. It can live with papers in a briefcase or in the glove compartment. It sits comfortably on my lap or on the steering wheel or on the seat-back tray in an airplane. The concept of using the “best available screen” is making more sense every day.
I only had a few days of iPad experience before heading off to Las Vegas for an annual convention, and once I arrived I needed to do some troubleshooting. That was when I discovered that access to the iPad Guide was only a link - not a durable copy stored in the iPad, and therefore not much help for troubleshooting connection problems. A very helpful Apple support person tried to email the PDF to me - I'd know later if it worked (it didn’t). Eventually I discovered “GoodReader,” an app/document reader for PDFs, which can retrieve downloaded documents from email or the web and hold them for later viewing without an internet connection.
The built-in note pad turned out to be useful for taking quick notes, although I quickly discovered the pitfalls of typing on the on-screen keyboard. The Pages app, while more powerful, didn’t seem to flow easily for my ad-hoc writing. Eventually I emailed my notes to my desktop Mac where I could use familiar editing tools.
Here are some other early impressions:
The UI and Managing Files
Managing files is pretty simple as long as you think "sync" (via iTunes) instead of copy, move, download, etc. Mail and the Safari browser provide a button to send links via email. Otherwise, some file transfer actions are possible using tools like Air Sharing and Drop Box, and iDisk/MobileMe and iWork. It looks like this will be a very active area for new apps and peripheral products, like the newly announced Air Stash, a wifi connected SD card reader.
Safari has become the new Finder. Most files now live in the cloud, hiding behind aliases/short cuts disguised as web pages. No more working one’s way up and down and sideways through nested folders.
The iPad isn’t a Mac… at least not until the MacOS morphs into a touch-driven user interface. Say goodbye to the desktop metaphor. Click and drag has become tap and hope. And it’s amazing how easy the transition has been.
The Keyboard
The on-screen keyboard requires a light and accurate touch which should favor my "hunt & peck" style, but I’m not as accurate (yet) as I hope to become. Typing errors don’t just mean unwanted characters but also can invoke unwanted commands or double keystrokes. Someone who has lived with the iPhone will probably find these to be familiar yet manageable issues.
Making text corrections is awkward. There are no arrow keys. The main keyboard also lacks numbers, most punctuation marks and “Undo.” (These items are reachable by first tapping the “123” key to bring up a new keyboard).
Cut-copy-paste use the same interesting (strange?) tool that first came to the iPhone. It has a mind of it's own. After a few weeks it still defies most of my efforts to use it.
The spelling corrector also has a mind of its own, illustrated by fighting with me that "Macintouch" should really be "Macintosh" and making other unilateral decisions that require effort to correct.
Printing
Printing was a mystery at first since there weren’t any print commands. Checking the App Store led me to DocPrinter for sending text or spreadsheet files over my local network for printing via a (free) client running on a desktop Mac. It works well and seems less convoluted than syncing via iTunes to access a Mac application for printing. Some day I’d like a more general capability for printing to a network-connected printer.
Wifi Network Access
Wifi connections to local networks have generally worked automatically without problems, and performance seems roughly equivalent to my white MacBook.
The ‘Vegas Convention Center provided the biggest wifi challenge, and also showed me the importance of carrying copies of critical documents, such as the iPad Guide, rather than depending upon a potentially-unusable link.
Service in the pressroom was no problem, with UID & password provided and a very strong signal, but out on the show floor things got ugly. I counted over thirty networks in a single spot in one exhibit hall. Renewing the DHCP lease or “forgetting” a wifi network - both options in the settings menu - didn’t help. I wasn’t alone. Lacking data to the contrary, I expect that the iPad was no worse than many other types of hardware, as many people - including exhibitors - were complaining about WiFi access.
When the wifi connection drops it’s not clear what action to take. … go to the settings app and take control? Or just be patient? A status indicator to indicate what the Pad is doing would be helpful.
The Case
I like the Apple case more and more, despite negatives raised by some early reviewers. It is durable, easy to hold and should help protect against spills. The flap makes an effective side sun shield, as I discovered on my mid-afternoon flight from Las Vegas. Back home, I found that the case supports the iPad in “steering wheel mode” (while parked, of course) and provides a very comfortable hands-free viewing position while using McDonald's wifi, drinking coffee, etc.
Pictures
The iPad provides tools for viewing images from local or online libraries, and for loading image files from a usb-connected card reader or camera. Images that appear on screen can be saved to the built-in “Photos” app by a press & hold action. I think that its greatest role - apart from running slide shows - may be an easy partnership with a digital camera, making it possible to examine and compare images right away, while there still is an opportunity for more shots. I haven’t yet tried to test this notion.
Summary
I’m convinced that the most impressive feature of the iPad so far has been its unobtrusiveness - light, thin, rugged, versatile - which meant that it could almost always be nearby and available.
The touch interface worked especially well for me for email and web browsing. Time will tell whether I can develop adequate typing skills for the on-screen keyboard. I hope so, because accessories such as an auxiliary keyboard can diminish the iPad’s go-anywhere versatility.
Some jobs are over its head. When the time came to prepare this article, I threw in the towel. I emailed all the rough material from the iPad to myself, so that I could consolidate and edit on a bigger screen with more powerful tools. Sadly I am reminded again how much I depend upon MORE (a 20-year old application - now in the public domain - that requires Classic mode or an old PPC Mac for work like this... What a marvelous iPad app that could be!)
The iPad gives me a third option for portable computing. My smartphone (Treo 700p) will go everywhere. The iPad will go whenever I have room. My laptop will go wherever I need its power for software capabilities that don't exist for the iPad, or when I need added connectivity by tethering the Treo.
Saving the best for last, my big win came at the auto repair shop, where I found an online discount coupon that was worth $50 when I showed the iPad to the cashier for validation. How neat is that?
© Joe Hallett 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Memorial Day 2010 - Norwell
I've been out of touch with Norwell, despite living there from 1940 to the early 1950s. I've always wondered about the circumstances under which my parents would have moved away from Braintree, just as WW2 was heating up.
The narrative at http://tinyurl.com/34hwamx explains a lot.
Norwell was "out there." We had a problematic well. Our phone number was "Hanover 176."
Names like Breezy Bend and Dead Man's Curve, Church Hill (fire company), Civil Defense and the Etrusco all have personal significance to me.
The trigger for this little adventure into the past was remembering the way that the volunteer firemen's graves in the Church Hill Cemetery, including my father's, are decorated on Memorial Day.
My mother sold the old house in 1957-58.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Syphoning Oil?
Am I the only person in the world who is put off by BP's bleating about using a siphon to catch the oil leaking from their deep water well?
Wouldn't that require catching the oil and delivering it to some place lower-down than the well?
Or perhaps they mean just putting a pipe on top of their private volcano and having it burp its insides all the way to the ocean surface?
Doesn't there have to be some pumping going on somewhere? Or at least an elevator to the surface...
Or am I missing something that - perhaps - wasn't taught in EE school?
And, by the way, where is the news about other oil companies and other countries - trying to help? Where is Red Adair when you need him... oh yes, he died a few years ago.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
iPad has entered my life
Safari has become the new Finder. Say goodbye to the desktop metaphor.
After being lured into the world of Macintosh back in 1984 by a "new user experience," followed by a couple of decades of fine tuning my brain and eye-hand coordination, now the UI again represents both a challenge and an opportunity. I think I will adjust pretty easily despite my advancing years, and the new iPad should broaden computer usage to a much wider audience.
Files now live in the "cloud," hiding behind aliases and short cuts disguised as web pages. Locating things has become a search, rather than one's way down through a hierarchy of folders and files... type a few letters and you're there. Could it be that this is a better way for those among us who are not "list-oriented?"
Data entry has a new set of tools, Or a lack thereof.
No arrow keys. No undo. A pointing tool that has a mind of it's own. No Save commands. No Print or Print to PDF commands. A keyboard without numbers. A spelling corrector that fights with me that "Macintouch" should really be "Macintosh."
Some of these changes are "fixable" by using third-party software "apps." Others just require slight mind-adjustments, like using a special shift key to get numbers and punctuation.
The iPad is seductive despite its challenges. It's light. It's sturdy. It's "cute." it works well at most of my everyday tasks involving the web and email. It looks like it will integrate easily into my "system" for managing and viewing digital images, as soon as the necessary "camera adaptor" arrives from China.
It gives me a third option for portable computing between my MacBook and smartphone (Treo 700p). Deciding what to carry should be fairly easy since each product brings its own tradeoffs of functions vs weight. The Treo will go everywhere. The iPad will go with me whenever I have room. The laptop will go wherever I have to deal with troubleshooting or creative/design activities, or need other software capabilities that don't exist for the iPad.
For two and a half decades I have lived and taught the philosophy that good software, properly matched to the task at hand, will provide a menu command to perform whatever needs to be done. The promise of the iPad and its new interface will ultimately succeed if Apple and the app developers succeed at maintaining that same consistency and predictability. The iPad has a good chance to become the modern "computer for the rest of us," and for "them," too.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Macworld 2010
San Francisco
Thursday, February 11, 2010.
11:15am. It’s hard to believe that I’m about to enter the exhibit hall for at least my 40th “Macworld.” My first was in Boston - I believe that it was in 1985. I began to attend the San Francisco shows around 1989, and only missed a few in either city after that, including the brief New York Macworld and the sadly impotent return to Boston’s shiny new convention center.
So here I am, with memories of crowds at registration, rented Hummers, signs all over San Francisco and exhibits that packed both big halls at the Moscone Center. But today’s reality is that there are only a few signs for about a block around the convention center, uncrowded sidewalks and no Hummers. And the larger Hall A is being used by a “Gift Convention.” The sidewalk in front of Hall A where eager folks once handed out non-working replicas of the soon-to-be released Zip Disk is empty.
Exhibits open in a few minutes, but there is no push to get into the hall. Out here at the bottom of the escalator there tables with more seats empty that not. Upstairs where I picked up my badge I had a choice of lines and was the only person in the one that I chose.
.
Fortunately I heard a cheerful “Hi Joe” as PMUG’s Devores passed me on the other side of the escalator, verifying that I’m really in the right place.
11:30 I'm going into the exhibits now - they opened 45 min early -apparently not enough people bought the "early entrance" perk to please the exhibitors...
12:30 It took just under an hour to make my first pass through the exhibits. This was longer than I had expected, and included only one conversation with a vendor. The aisles are comfortably full with a few inexplicable pockets of enthusiasm for aftermarket enhancements for iPods and iPhones. The vendor - I'll get his identity later - was at his first Macworld and wishes they had put his document scanner closer to other business-oriented products such as document scanning software. He turned out to be an industry old-timer from SuperMac and PaperPort. This is a "pre-introduction" showing so I'll go back for more specific info.
I saw only one unexpected product: an overlay for the iPhone places raised "bumps" over and between the virtual keys, providing a tactile feel. It's an effect something like the raised bumps that are found on the "f" and "g" keys of many conventional keyboards to aid touch typists.
MacSpeech is showing a variety of products and has a live demo of their voice recognition software. Omni products has a large booth
The highlight of the exhibits may be 20-30 small developer stands under the "Special Interest Pavillion" banner. I'll spend lots more time there later.
The music has started.
2:40pm The crowd has grown and filled the exhibit area. There a very few empty chairs and lots of campers sitting on the floor to eat their picnic lunches out here, in the lower lobby, and there are about the same numbers of people going both up and down the escalators...
Navigon AG (Hamburg, Germany) is showing their turn by turn nav system for the iPhone and offering a $69. show price. It includes a set of Navteq maps which - unfortunately - have the same bug as the Navteq maps in our 2+ year old Motorola TN30 GPS (try to find SE Briggs St, Milwaukie, Oregon with your favorite GPS unit)
Berklee School of Music (Boston) again has a large booth with demos of software for music creation and editing. Their presentation are on line at http://berkleemwsf.com/
Scosche Industries has a big crowd interested in iPod/iPhone accessories. They showed some interesting bluetooth products at CES but I didn’t fight thru the mob to see if they’re available here.
No sign of FileMaker although their web site last year stated an expectation to be here.
I talked with Omni - they are working on versions of their productivity software for iPhone and iPad... should be interesting since lots of bells and whistles won’t fit on the smaller screen and could reduce the modal clutter that has kept me away from their Mac products.
Microsoft has a modest booth for MacOffice, giving away mints in heart-shaped tins that proclaims “OfficeMac (heart) You! For more there’s twitter.com/officeformac --Correction: they are Red Hots - not mints...
5:20pm The crowd thinned out fast after the lunch hour. The floor stayed busy, but not jammed up.
I spent some time with Mike Jacobs, co-founder of Appsaurus (in the small developer area) His product will assist an iPhone user to extract a short list of potentially-interesting iPhone/iPad apps from the iTunes Store. In the old days this would have been called AI (Artificial Intelligence)! The booth was so new that it didn't have a sign, and its identity was displayed (hidden?) by colorful renderings of dinosaur-like creatures. www.appsaurusapp.com
At another Small Developer stand, CEO Tod Hadley of Juicy Development explained that his Talk Radio app would soon be able to help radio listeners to avoid selected talk shows while driving... the app now makes it possible to do the inverse selection. www.juicydevelopment.com
Guiseppe Giunto, CEO, and his son demonstrated Hyperbolic Software's "Tidy Up" software for the Mac and convinced me to buy a copy. In addition to its more-or-less obvious functions, Tidy Up makes it possible to scan multiple hard drives and identify one copy of every unique file, so that a collection can be created without making duplicates. www.hyperbolicsoftware.com
Time to call it a day. More tomorrow, maybe.
Friday, February 12, 2010
1:04 I've been in the hall for about 3 hours and the traffic pattern looks similar to yesterday except a little lighter at mid-day. Still the aisles have been busy. The mobile special interest area is packed with iPhone app developers'
I was taken by 3DiPhoneInc from Vancouver BC, whose president, Arcady Kropov demonstrated 3D imaging using pairs of iPhones - one set taking stereo pairs from a platform above the booth, and another pair used with an inexpensive magnifier-viewer. (Think of an 1800s stereo viewer - the one with the wood handle - recreated in brightly colored plastic!)
Talking with HP about their "Media Server" product, I realized how difficult it is to define the product without using the words "server" and "media." That said, it appears to offer less functionality than the recently announced Apple "Mini Server" as a tool for collecting and brings entertainment content to the living room.
Some miscellaneous items that were interesting enough at the time for me to pick up literature, but not to engage the booth personnel:
General purpose business apps from RLM Tools (www.rlmtools.com and Quickoffice (quickoffice.com)
Eye-Fi X2 enhanced SDHC 8GB memory card that provides 802.11n network connectivity and wifi-based geotagging/location service
Despite the show floor activity I sense a sort of depressed feeling among us "old timers." Big change is upon us. I hope it's not well-represented by the 20-something guy who sat cross-legged in the middle of one of the heavily-traveled aisles like an earth-toned pylon, nor by the hundreds of people who simply walked around him without a sign of concern.
I'm out of here.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Ham Radio and Emergency Organizations
The local amateur radio emergency service folks have been putting on a show of organizational bad behavior for quite a few weeks now. I'm embarrassed by it.
Fortunately I can still remember the joy and satisfaction of my early years of "hamming" starting with getting my ticket as a 15-year old in 1947. At this point I can still copy cw at 25-30 wpm (faster than I can send it) and I still feel pride at the inevitable reports of hams doing good works in emergencies. Yet I can't help feeling that the institutionalization of ham's emergency activities has gone too far when it causes well-meaning radio amateurs to get caught up in office politics and posturing... no matter what the "official" party line may be.
Joe Hallett
W2HFD, ex-W1QMJ
Amateur Extra Class
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)